#*before sunrise

and something I realized after having written this piece, is that this movie and one day (which I’ve also written a fic based off of) are quite similar. okay not they’re not all that similar, but in my head they’re the same! mainly in the sense that the most important part of both films is the dialogue between the two characters. they’re both such character based stories which is telling about the sorts of stories that I enjoy writing.

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anyways as I watched the movie, I started thinking about who would work well as the kb (kpop boy) (one of the options was Joshua from svt, fun fact) and I ultimately ended up choosing kevin from tbz but in all honesty I don’t remember why LOL. either way, he works so well for this story. I also feel like if anyone were to do something as crazy and as insane as asking a stranger to wander around some european city with them for an entire night, it’d be him. he’s described himself as an awkward social butterfly so it just works perfectly.

usually when I write fics I don’t worry too much about how close the kb character is like the actual person (cause obviously i don’t know them but it’s also a personal/stylistic choice for me) BUT that was not the case with before sunrise.

for this piece I really wanted kevin to be the character and adopt some of his mannerisms that you see on screen. for example, the bit right after they get off the train, where it’s just awkward between them, I wrote that with Kevin in mind. and obviously the Beyoncé bit. and also just how random the conversation is. (obviously this is speculation) but I do feel like he’d be the type of person to have randomly deep thoughts and just speak them out loud. and.... idk where I was going with this but yEAH.

I mention all this because I’ve considered many times rewriting this piece for another group, but the idea always falls flat because who else but kevin from the boyz would work in this story you know?

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okay so now about the actual piece:

the first conversation mc and kevin share on the train but before they move to the different car, is really odd to me, but i did that purposefully. the way the two characters started talking in the movie was very abrupt and felt super awkward to me. as the movie continued, i realized that the charm of the two characters was how awkward and like helpless they sort of appear. which is also just nice to see on screen, life is way more awkward and choppy than books and movies tend to portray. so that’s the reasoning behind the very first conversation kevin and mc share.

and this same line of reasoning is also what lead to the very awkward moments between kevin and reader immediately after getting off the train. in my head, both characters are just thinking: ‘what now?’

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so the part in the art museum is one i like a lot and was inspired by one too many web weaving posts about ghosts and also by these paintings. the first one is by anne magill whose art i absolutely adore and the other one is from this 

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i really love the scene in the record shop, its one of my absolute favorites, and moon river and il mondo were very carefully selected to be two of the songs they listened to. there’s a gifset i saw with commentary from the actors on filming that scene, and it just seemed like such a special and intimate moment between the two and so i really wanted to incorporate that somehow into the fic. 

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another thing! in the movie the female character is a bit more of a hopeless romantic and the dude is more skeptical about love, but for the fic i decided to switch those two roles. so kevin is very optimistic about love while mc is more cynical. 

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(im looking through the piece to see which parts i have comments on) but i just really am in love with the conversation the two of them share. it’s so existential and oddly deep for a pair of strangers, but again, that’s the charm of this story.

these two have nothing to lose by telling the other about their deepest thoughts and worries, and so they do. like both characters are so burdened by life when they meet on the train, and throughout the night they both get the opportunity to let go of those burdens piece by piece and dump out their worries one by one. 

and ahhhh, i just adore the moments that are shared by them. 

at the time that i was writing this, i was feeling very existential about life and youth and love (could you tell lol) and i wasn’t really talking to anyone about it. so this piece turned into an outlet for me to dump out my thoughts and opinions about life onto. like the parts about happiness, soulmates, youth, marriage, and falling in and out of love are all MY thoughts and are all realization that were made by ME. so this piece is way more personal than it appears. just because the state of minds’ of kevin and mc and so similar to mine, especially at that time. i was basically turning conversations i had with myself into a story. 

and i think my favorite part about all of this in relation to how it plays out in the story. its sort of a fantasy of mine actually. not the whole hanging out with the stranger part but rather the conversation that they’re able to share with each other and how transparently they’re able to speak. since writing this piece, i have spoken to close friends and family about the thoughts that were really weighing on me back then, but sometimes when i talk to them it feels as if i’m talking to a wall. which sounds way more dramatic than i mean for it to be lol. i’m just very bad at expressing myself in conversation and words never feel like enough to convey how i’m feeling and where my head is at. and also, when you’re having a real conversation with someone, it’s human nature to interject with your own thoughts and worries. so that on top of everything else i mentioned, just makes me really long for the conversation that kevin and mc share through out the night. they both are just very good listening and they don’t dismiss one another (at least i don’t think they do) and they’re both just very open minded to the other. i wrote them this way unknowingly, but looking back, i really really appreciate this and this aspect to their dynamic cause it’s definitely not that easy in real life. 

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ahh phone booth scene my beloved!! 

i don’t have much to actually say other than this part:

“Yeah, no. I was gonna say the same thing.” He nods solemnly, visibly gulping as if the words are hard to swallow

he was definitely NOT going to say the same thing

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okay also the entire part in the park.... everything i said before is a lie THAT’s my favorite part of this piece

i have nothing more to say but i’m sorry this got so long omg